Page 81 of Jonas

I was still trying to arrange my thoughts when Derrika came into the living room dressed. I didn’t understand the scowl on her face, but she was back to the angry pirate look with her brow raised.

It took a great deal of effort not to laugh. Thankfully, I pulled it together enough to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Is that why I had no water pressure in the shower?”

Fuck.

“And Dawn? You took a shower and used dish soap?”

I wasn’t seeing an issue. In the field, you washed with whatever you could get your hands on.

“Yeah. Why?”

Her gaze went to my hair.

“Even your hair?”

“Baby, you know people use Dawn to clean the oil off birds after a spill.”

Her lips thinned.

“Something to know about me.”

“Okay?”

“The Toyota I left back at the apartment was given to me by Anson to drive. I own an F-250.”

Of course she did.

“What color?”

“Black, why?”

I couldn’t stop my smile. “We have matching trucks. Just bought mine.”

She stopped frowning and smiled back. “So you know.”

“Know what?”

“I own a gas-guzzling truck for no other reason than I want it. So, I can’t be a card carrying environmentalist but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the environment.”

This time it took more restraint not to laugh when I said, “Okay.”

“Seeing as I care about the environment, I have a love-hate relationship with the oil companies. But that love dies and hate consumes me when there’s an oil spill.”

“Agreed.”

“That means I don’t like watching those commercials where the birds are being cleaned off with Dawn. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they’re being saved, but I hate watching them. And I’m allergic to those SPCA commercials and the Wounded Warrior commercials, and the Saint Jude ones nearly send me into an allergy fit that takes hours to overcome.”

I was a little late on the uptake but I finally got it. That was her cute-as-fuck way of telling me she was a crier.

“Baby,” I murmured.

Both of her hands went to her waist, and her hip cocked to the side.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not a badass, Jonas.”

Taking in all that was her—the disgruntled look on her face, her wet, tangled hair piled on top of her head secured there with a rubber band, the plain gray tee, the toes of her Lowa boots visible under the hem of her faded jeans. I was totally right that first day—Derrika Layne was not into skirts and dresses. Further from that, she was too comfortable with her face bare to suggest she wore makeup on a regular basis. All of that was appealing. But it was more—Derrika as a whole—her openness, her humor, her intelligence, her wit, the deep and meaningful way she understood the world around her. She didn’t mask pity with empathy. She’d listened to me tell her what had happened to my brother, took it in, processed it, felt the tragedy it was, understood how Adam’s loss affected me, how my stepfather’s abuse had shaped me into the man I would become.